It started with the seductive Donald Draper. It was, in retrospect, the start of a beautiful relationship.

This cocktail at L’Abattoir restaurant, a newcomer to Gastown, was the flirtation before things heated up at dinner. L’Abattoir, I gotta say, nails it. I got very excited over the food.

The principals behind L’Abattoir are Paul Grunberg and Lee Cooper and it’s a great synergy. And Shaun Layton, an award-winning bar manager, has created an exceptional cocktail line-up. The wine list is short with an interesting line-up of off-the-beaten track selections.

Grunberg’s restaurant cred includes a stint as general manager at Market (Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s baby at the Shangri-La Hotel). He’s done a tour of duty in all of the super-chef’s New York restaurants to “soak in the philosophy and culture of what makes his places special.”. He was also general manager at Chambar, Feenie’s (before Rob Feenie’s departure) and was consultant to the brilliantly conceived Bao Bei Chinese Brasserie in Chinatown.

Cooper has worked as sous chef at Market and cooked for a year at Fat Duck in England, under one of the most exalted and creative chefs in the world (Hester Blumenthal).

Cooper’s dishes are lovely to behold but not in a hands-off way; I still wanted to attack with knife and fork. Most dishes are a nice balance of textures and flavours; many are compelling riffs on old standards. Salad of chicken and lightly pickled cauliflower is delightful: Cubes of chicken mousse, papery filigrees of cauliflower as well as pickled cauliflower, are lightly tossed with a foie gras mayonnaise. Airy shrimp crackers crowned the dish. Exciting for chicken salad, I say.

Confit of albacore tuna, another delicious dish is a toss-up of looked like savoury little marshmallows, crispy smoked pork fat and a tumble of herbs; Dungeness crab and chickpea toast is a hollow cylinder of toasted brioche, filled with crab custard; scallops crudo with sweet bread and foie gras spring roll featured the most delectable spring roll I’ve ever had. (The starters are $10 to $13.)

Under mains ($22 to $25), a poached halibut with mussels, spinach dumplings and ragout of summer vegetables with garlic sabayan and it was delicious. “Scales” of zucchini covered the fish; lovely vegetables ringed the fish and drifts of sabayan, like a chorus, pulled the dish together. I expected flank steak (with sweetbread, potato fondants, charred onion and fried peppers) to be a bistro-style dish but the meat was cut into medallions and carefully plated. The same with leg of lamb with Indian spices; plated beautifully with the meat neatly cut up and perfect little orbs of fritters, kind of like Indian falafels were an unexpected pleasure.

Desserts didn’t hit home runs but they were more interesting than the usual after-thoughts. Lemon thyme sorbet, I believe, was meant to wake-up the sleepy ricotta cheese tart, but it was not the right kind of contrast. It begged for something deeply luscious — a cherry sauce, rum and raisins? Trifle with peaches was like a hit of summer but can’t give it a lot of points of technical prowess. Fizzy lemonade with blueberry sorbet, tapioca pearls, mint granita was a fun, effervescent way to finish a meal.

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